


Obstacles

by Punrise



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Multi, Nightmares, Underage Drinking, blond eddie, it's angsty, mentions of georgie's death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-16
Updated: 2018-09-16
Packaged: 2019-07-13 05:59:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16011731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Punrise/pseuds/Punrise
Summary: But most of all he remembers a feeling of unrequited love for one Eddie Kaspbrak. The blond boy with a deranged mother and more medications than Richie could ever hope to name. He remembers crawling through the boy’s window in the middle of the night and falling asleep on his floor before having to scramble out of the window the next morning and attempt to sneak back into his own house. He remembers being disappointed when Eddie got a girlfriend in seventh grade, and it wasn’t too long after that that Richie moved and began to forget.After they move away from Derry the Losers forget. They reunite in college and start to remember, but it's only a matter of time before they forget again.





	Obstacles

**i** **  
** _i'm the ghost at the back of your head_

Richie drops the cardboard box full of clothes with a thud just outside his closet, using his foot to push it inside. He had no desire or motivation to unpack it just yet and he definitely wasn’t bothered about living out of boxes for the entire year. Hell, if he didn’t have a roommate that would probably be exactly what he would do but he wasn’t sure that the other boy would be too pleased about that. If he ever shows up, that is. Richie and his parents have been there for over an hour now, and there’s still no sign of his roommate. It’s nearing 5PM, and Richie’s starting to wonder whether the kid had got cold feet and dropped out already.

“Right,” Maggie Tozier appears in the doorway, the final box in her arms which she drops onto the bed that Richie had claimed as soon as they arrived. “Your dad and I are starving, so we’re going to head out and see if there’s any good places to eat. Do you want to come or would you rather settle in?”

“You’re asking me if I want to stay here alone or go out to eat?” Richie laughs, raising an eyebrow. “Do you really think that I’d pass on the offer of free, decent food before I have to live off of college cafeteria food? Sometimes I think you don’t know me as well as you think you do.”

“Well hurry up and get in the car then,” His mom grins. “And I know you well enough to know that you’ll order mac and cheese at whatever restaurant we go to.”

He does end up ordering mac and cheese — there was nothing else on the menu he liked! — much to his mom’s delight. He just rolls his eyes at her teasing words and wolfs down the meal when it comes. Moving in is hard work, even if he hasn’t unpacked anything yet and, for all that he knew, this could be his last edible meal — god knows what they served up in the cafeteria (he’d find out tomorrow morning, though, and he wasn’t looking forward to it. He was starting to wonder whether choosing catered accommodation was the right choice).

The ride back to campus is quiet, and Richie climbs out of the car with tears welling up in his eyes. He practically throws himself into his mom’s open arms, wrapping his own around her neck as they hold each other tightly. He knows he’s going to miss his parents like hell and he’ll readily admit that to anyone because it’s nothing to be ashamed of. He hears a car door slam and then his dad is joining in on the hug and Richie is surprised that he’s managed to keep it together.

“We’ll see you at Christmas, champ,” His dad ruffles his hair as they pull away and stand close in the fading light. “You have a good time, okay? Make sure you do your homework on time and turn up for classes. And do laundry once a week, don’t just wait until you’re out of clean underwear.”

“Sure thing dad,” Richie forces a smile, swallowing around the lump in his throat. “Have a safe drive home. I love you.”

He stands and waves until the car is out of his view, and then quickly turns on his heel and heads inside. He should probably get started on unpacking if he actually wants to be able to use his bed tonight and not piss off his roommate too much. Maybe he’ll get lucky and his roommate will be chill with mess but it’s unlikely. It’s not as if Richie is horribly messy, but his room has never been spotless. He was a lot worse as a child with odd socks and dirty clothes mixed with scattered trading cards and empty soda cans littering his bedroom floor but even so, his mom still avoided going into his room if she could. A lot of his friends back in California had been the same, though, and he hadn’t been ashamed of it up until a couple of weeks ago until he realised that he’d be sharing a room this year and that his roommate might not share the same habits.

It becomes clear as he’s walking down the hallway that his roommate has arrived. The door is propped open and there’s quiet conversation coming the room. Richie debates whether or not to go back in because he doesn’t want to intrude but in the end he decides that lurking out in the hallway is weirder than just unpacking his stuff quietly, so he takes a deep breath, puts on a smile and walks in there.

“Hi,” the woman speaks first and the boy, who Richie assumes is his roommate, looks up from where he had been looking through a box. “I’m Arlene.”

“Hi, I’m Richie,” He smiles, heading over to his side of the room. He directs his speech mostly to the boy, because he knows that he’s not going to see much of Arlene besides today and when they have to move out but he’s going to be stuck with this boy for the foreseeable future. “I’m majoring in theatre.”

“I’m Ben,” The boy’s cheek flush, and he avoids Richie’s gaze. So he’s shy, Richie thinks, that’s not so bad. “I’m majoring in English Literature.”

“Nice,” Richie nods. He pulls out the duvet and bedding sets his mom had packed. “Well, it was nice getting to know you Ben, but it looks like we both have a lot of unpacking to do.”

Arlene leaves around nine, once both boys have mostly unpacked. Ben blushes a deep scarlet when his mom insists on kissing his forehead before she leaves and when he turns to Richie after she’s gone, Richie just laughs it off with a wave of his hand. Some moms are like that, he tells Ben, it’s nothing to be embarrassed about. It just means that they love you. Ben agrees, keeping his eyes down on the floor. He seems to loosen up a little as they finish up (although Richie still hasn’t touched the boxes in the closet, and he doesn’t plan to any time soon) and nearing 9PM they find themselves sat on the floor between their beds playing go fish.

“Good game, Ben.” Richie says, leaning back on his hands once the game is over. Bill smiles, finally meeting Richie’s eyes and something inside Richie starts to scream and a feeling of horror envelops him. _You know him you know him you know h-!_ but he _doesn’t_ know him, and Richie blinks hard, shaking his head as if it would make the weird voice and the uneasy feeling creeping over him go away. It doesn’t, but if the frown on Ben’s face and the glint of fear in his eyes is any indication then Ben is experiencing the same thing. Richie gets to his feet without a word, grabbing his coat from the hook on the back of their door. That was weird, he thinks as the door closes behind him, that was fucking weird.

He runs away from the dormitory, his heart racing and thoughts whirling around in his head faster than he can properly process them. He wants to call his parents, wants them to drive back and come pick him up because what the fuck was that? He knows Ben but he can’t think where from, and Ben knows him too. But why can't they recall where they met? Why are both of them just as clueless as the other? Surely one of them should remember. He feels uneasy, as if someone or something is watching his as he jogs down the empty street, his breath puffing out in front of him in a white cloud that quickly dissipates. It's not just the fact that he doesn't know where he met Ben that's unsettling, but the feeling — the rush of terror that had flooded through him as soon as they had locked eyes.

"Haystack." The word forces its way out of Richie's mouth and takes him by surprise. It relates to Ben, Richie knows that, but he just doesn't know how. He stops moving, leaning against a lamppost as he attempts to catch his breath. He's unnerved, spooked, and wants to keep running but he knows that he can't. Against all of his instincts he knows that he needs to go back to that dormitory and figure this all out with Ben. One of them is bound to remember sooner or later.

/

"You're sure that you don't remember me at all?" Richie presses, leaning his head against the wall. "Nothing. Not one tiny little thing? W-what about the word haystack? Does that mean anything to you? I- God, Ben, this is so fucked up."

"Tell me about it," Ben's bottom lip is quivering as he sits cross legged on his bed. Tension is thick in the air along with fear and desperation and this was not at all how Richie was expecting his first night at college to go. "I don't- haystack seems familiar but I don't know why," he looks to Richie, his eyes welling with tears. "I felt so scared when we locked eyes, you have no idea. It was like- like..." he trails off, wiping at his cheeks.

"I felt it too," Richie runs a hand over his face, the fingers on his other hand tapping on his leg. "Just pure terror. Like we were about to get murdered or something."

At that Ben straightens up, looking at Richie with wide eyes. "Richie, have you ever hung around in a sewer?"

"What?" Richie's first reaction is to scoff because no, of course he would never hang around in a sewer, who would? But then there's a memory, something stirring in his mind. A half-formed image of something that is definitely a sewer, dark and damp and fucking gross and there are figures there too, people, in front of him but he can't make them out because it's too blurry but they're familiar —  they're his friends his mind supplies but he has no idea who they are. No. He knows who one of them is. It's Ben. "No," he shakes his head. "No. I'm done with this shit for tonight, Ben. I'm fucking done," it's too much. He wishes that he'd never applied for this damned college. He wishes that he'd never been assigned Ben as a roommate. "We're not talking about this any more tonight, okay? I just- I need some time to process this all or else I'm gonna lose my damn mind."

"Same," Ben says shakily. Richie feels slightly bad for snapping at him but everything was just too much. This whole situation was absolutely fucked and it made no sense whatsoever and Richie felt as if everything was slowly crumbling around his because he knew Ben. He knew Ben and they were in the sewer together but why and where and how? "We have classes tomorrow," he says, changing the subject. "We should probably go to bed. I, uh, I have a 9AM and I don't want to be late."

It's awkward as they both get ready for bed. Ben showers first and Richie can hear him crying even over the water running. It's makes Richie uncomfortable as he roots through his boxes of clothes to find a pair of pyjama shorts; he knows that something bad went down and that the two of them were involved in it, that much was clear. He just wants to know what and who else was there and why they can't remember. Ben doesn't talk to him once he emerges from the bathroom and Richie says nothing once he's showered and heading to bed. He drifts into an uneasy, but thankfully dreamless, sleep that night.

/

His first day of classes isn't too bad. He'd managed to stay awake in his classes and he'd actually learned things instead of just being sat there absorbing nothing like he had during high school. Richie hadn't made any friends but that was okay because he had all year. He checks his watch as he leaves the lecture hall, shouldering his backpack and, seeing that it's just after 6PM, he decides to head straight down to the cafeteria to grab dinner.

The first person he sees once he enters the cafeteria is Ben, because of course it is. The boy stands up as soon as he sees Richie and hurries over to him. The look on Ben's face unsettles Richie a little and he steels himself as the other boy opens his mouth and prepares to speak.

"I've found another," he says. "Bill. Bill Denbrough. We had a lecture together this morning and the same thing happened when we looked at each other. He says that he had the same thing with his roommate, a boy called Stan Uris. They know about the sewers thing too but not the haystack thing—"

"Ben, I don't know if I can do this," Richie shakes his head. "Look, it's good that you've found these people, it really is, and I hope that you can figure things out but I just don't know if I can do this myself. We have degrees we need to be working towards and assignments and homework and—"

"Don't you want to know what this is about?" Ben frowns. "We knew each other before this, Richie, all four of us did but not one of us can remember why. Don't you think that's odd?"

"I think it's fucking bizarre," Richie says. "And that's why I don't want anything to do with it right now. Just give me a little bit of time, Ben, and maybe I'll be open to all of this but don't you think that maybe we shouldn't know about all of this? That maybe there's a good reason that we don't remember. Whatever it is it was clearly more messed up than this whole situation is and this whole thing is pretty goddamn bad, wouldn't you say?"

"I guess so," Ben says. "Can you at least sit with us, though? It's not like you have anyone else to sit with, and even if you don't want to be involved then maybe just sitting with us will help kick start our memories."

Richie reluctantly agrees and takes the seat next to Ben once he has his tray. The other boys, Bill and Stan seem nice enough and sure enough, there is something familiar in Stan's serious expression that almost never leaves his face, and in Bill's warm smile. The three of them are pretty engaged in their conversation but Richie isn't really listening, his eyes glued to his phone. It's not good table manners, he knows, but damn he's in the middle of a college cafeteria after a long day of classes sat next to three people he's linked to through some shitty event that they can't recall so yeah, he definitely deserves to be able to scroll through his social media whilst he's eating, and he's sure that his mom would understand that.

Bill, Stan and Ben don't seem to settle on anything that could link them all together. It's been a day and Richie's already over it, honestly, there has to be a good reason why they couldn't remember and, if it involves a sewer, he's not sure that he wants to know. Nothing good ever happens in sewers and there'd be absolutely no reason that four young boys would be in one if it didn't involve trouble.

But Ben, in that moment, iis determined to find out and he manages to keep that up for a grand total of two months before calling it quits.

 **ii  
** _i found you in the sand_

Richie almost forgets about it before he meets Eddie Kaspbrak. Before it had almost plagues him and as much as he wanted to ignore it, it crept into his thoughts and his dreams and he had spent many sleepless nights with the image of the sewer in his mind, racking his brains as to what it meant and who the other three figures in the picture was. Soon, though, it was put on the back burner as essays and projects were thrown at him and he was more worried about his grades than anything else. It was replaced with scripts and presentations and anxiety. He felt as if he barely had time to breathe, let alone try and work out just how he was linked to people he had absolutely no memory of other than a blurry half-image he could conjure up.

Even after returning from winter break, a nice reprieve from the mountain of stress he had been struggling to climb for the past couple of weeks, he didn't think about it all that much. Only when Ben or Bill made an offhand comment and brought it to his attention again. It wasn't until one night when he was making his way down to the cafeteria that he really started thinking hard about it.

"Watch where you're going!" He barked as someone slammed into him and a mess of loose paper fluttered down onto the floor. There was a mumbled apology from the blond haired boy and Richie sighed, bending down to pick up some of the papers and help the boy out. As he took the papers from Richie's hand and their eyes met, there's the familiar jolt of fear but also something different, something he hadn't felt when recognising Bill, Stan or Ben. Something close to longing. Richie's cheeks start to heat up and he feels a lot like Ben. "Um..."

"You're another one," The boy says, studying Richie carefully. "Another one from Derry," he clarifies. It takes Richie a minute to process what the boy had said and when he does, he feels stupid. Derry. They were all from Derry — of couese that was what links them. "Shit. We've been searching this whole year I- my friends, Bev, Mike and I. The fear thing, when we looked at each other—"

"Yeah, I know what you're talking about," Richie nods, slightly distracted by the boy's subtle beauty. He remembers loving this boy and it's weird, because he doesn't even know his name but he loves him. "The sewers, right?" he asks, and anyone walking boy would be super confused but they knew exactly what they were talking about. "My friend Ben, we're roommates, he was trying to find the others too but we didn't get very far."

"How many did you find?"

"There's four of us, but —"

"Seven!" The boy's eyes light up at this. "We've done it — there were seven of us in that sewer!" Richie can't stop thinking about how adorable he is, too wrapped up in the boy's features to be relieved at the news. "Now we can figure out what happened."

"Yeah," Richie answers, forcing himself to tear his gaze away from the boy's face. "I'm Richie. My friends are Bill, Stan and Ben. I- can you meet in the cafeteria in twenty? I’ll get everyone and we can try and figure this out.”

Ben was delighted when Richie told him, and the two fetch Bill and Stan who are equally as excited. Richie is excited too, but not for the reasons of the others. He wants to know how he knows the blond boy, where the strong feelings come from and whether they would ever be able to act on them. Richie knows that it’s way too soon to be thinking about that but he can’t help it. Besides, he was fairly sure that the other boy felt the same way (although he couldn’t be sure) and there had to be a reason that their reactions to meeting had been different than any of the others that they had experienced. It was the only thing that made sense in the shit storm, or it was in Richie’s mind at least.

When the seven of them meet in the cafeteria, the atmosphere changes. Richie can’t put his finger on how, or why, but the others notice it too. They sit there in silence for the longest time not knowing what to say until the girl, who Richie assumes is Bev, speaks up, directing her words to Ben.

“You built us the underground clubhouse,” she says and Ben frowns for a second before shaking his head. “You did. We used to sit down there all the time and listen to music from your speaker.” She directed the last part towards Richie and sure enough, he could picture it in his mind. The clubhouse with the seven of them sat, legs stretched into the middle. Rock music playing softly from his speaker that his mom wouldn’t let him play in the house.

“And you had you arm broken,” Bill nods towards the blond boy who Richie still didn’t know the name of. “I don’t remember who by but—”

“Bowers,” Stan cuts in. “It was Bowers. I remember you telling us afterwards.”

And it’s weird; they’ve struggled to come up with anything other than the sewers for months whilst they were parted. But, now that they were back together, they were bouncing off of each other. It was little things. Richie remembers sleepovers at Bill’s house and smoking cigarettes with Bev. He remembers childish laughter and the pops of firecrackers. He remembers late nights and cold waters, screams echoing in the dark as they blindly splashed each other.

But most of all he remembers a feeling of unrequited love for one Eddie Kaspbrak. The blond boy with a deranged mother and more medications than Richie could ever hope to name. He remembers crawling through the boy’s window in the middle of the night and falling asleep on his floor before having to scramble out of the window the next morning and attempt to sneak back into his own house. He remembers being disappointed when Eddie got a girlfriend in seventh grade, and it wasn’t too long after that that Richie moved and began to forget.

/

“Bev and I are together,” Ben says just over a month later and it doesn’t shock Richie at all. They had been the embodiment of the heart eye emojis, whenever they looked at each other, for a couple of weeks now. From what Richie could remember, Ben’s crush on Bev hadn’t exactly been hidden like his on Eddie, and he was glad that they were finally getting to do something about it. “She asked me this morning, and there was no way that I could say no ‘cause I was planning to ask her too, I just never had the guts to.”

“That’s great,” Richie grins, clapping Ben on the back. “You two were made for each other, dude. You’ll be a great couple.”

“You think so?” Ben beams, leaning into Richie’s side as they walk down the corridor towards the library.

“I know so,” Richie answers. “And so will all of the other losers. Who knows at the moment? Are you gonna do a big reveal at the library? I don’t think that’s such a good idea. Might get us kicked out from all of the screaming.”

They had managed to piece together most of their childhoods growing up together in Derry. They knew that they had formed the Loser’s Club and that they had spent most of their time being terrorised by Henry Bowers and his goons. They knew about their days spent at the quarry and the evenings spent down in the underground clubhouse. The memories were hazy but they were still there.

The Loser’s Club was back in business and they were nearly inseparable again.

There were still chunks that they didn’t know; what had happening in the sewers and most of one summer, which was when they presumed that the sewer event took place, but so far they had managed to connect it to the untimely death of Bill’s little brother Georgie. Bill had paled at that, and admitted that he hadn’t thought about Georgie in a long time and that he could barely remember that day. That only served to reinforce the oddness of the situation, because surely you’d remember something like that, and they were convinced that there was some sort of evil force at play, no matter how stupid that sounded.

“Nah,” Ben shakes his head. Richie had known anyway; Ben was never one for making a fuss out of something. “We’ll just tell people when we want to. I mean Bill’s been egging me on for ages so it’s not as if it’s going to come as a shock to anyone.”

“Definitely not,” Richie lowers his voice as they push through the library doors. “But it’s still cute as hell, Ben, even if we saw it coming from a mile off.”

“Thank you,” Ben smiles and he two take a seat at one of the large tables. They’re the first ones there, surprisingly and honestly Richie isn’t even sure what they’re going to be doing. “Are you going to do anything about Eddie?”

Richie turns to Ben, trying to hide his shock. “No?” He frowns, pretending to be confused as to why Ben would even bring it up. “Why would I do that?”

“Come on. You two have been worse than Bev and I,” Ben scoffs and rolls his eyes. Richie shakes his head. “Yes you have! You should make a move, man. If I can—”

“Bev asked you out, Ben, so don’t even go there,” Richie lets his head drop into his hands. Fuck. He thought that he was doing a good job at hiding it but obviously now. “It’s not like you think, okay? He’s just different… when we looked at each other it was—”

Richie was cut off by a loud thump, looking up as Beverly dropped another couple of books onto the table and took her seat. He made a gagging noise as she wrapped an arm around Ben and earned a middle finger in response that he quickly returned. Mike and Stan were the next to join them and Richie could swear that there was something going on with them, too, but he couldn’t be sure and he wasn’t about to ask. They’d tell when they were ready. Eddie came next and then Bill and his girlfriend Audra who they had been getting to know recently. She didn’t really talk much during the Losers’ meetings, but she seemed nice enough and Bill was constantly singing her praises so Richie trusted her. He doesn’t exactly know why but he trusts anything or anyone Bill does and it’s weird, but he just assumes that it stems back to their hazy childhoods.

“Right, so why are we all gathered here today?” Bev asks, leaning forward in her chair. Out of all of them Bev was perhaps the most eager to try and find out what had happened that one summer.

“I remembered something else about Georgie,” Bill says. He scoots his chair closer to the table, lowers his voice and Richie can’t help but start to feel uneasy. “We found his body. It was—  I don’t remember how or where but I remember his raincoat. It was bright yellow and—”

“The sewer,” Stan says quietly, looking down at the table. “It was in the sewer. I think— Bill, what if that’s why we went down there in the first place? It makes sense, doesn’t it? It would explain why we were down there because I can’t think of any other reason.”

“It has something to do with it,” Bill says. “I know that much but I don’t think it’s the entire reason we were down there. There’s something more to it but I just— I can’t remember and it’s frustrating me. I called my mom and dad but they refuse to even talk about him so I didn’t get anywhere. We were down there for Georgie, yes, but there was something else we needed to do. Something important.”

Richie wants to say that he knows what Bill’s talking about; there’s something stirring in his mind as the other boy speaks, but it doesn’t become clear no matter how hard he tries to focus on it. There’s something more than just finding Georgie, that much becomes clear. There’s something sinister lurking just out of reach and Richie looks around at the other Losers, wondering if they feel it too. Bev looks uneasy and when their gazes meet she gives him a single nod.

“I think we need to go back to Derry.” The words slide of Richie’s tongue easily, even if he wasn’t the one who put them there. It’s a stupid idea and they all know that, every single one of them, but nobody protests.

/

“Mom, I know,” Richie sighs, his phone pressed to his ear. “I know but something’s come up, okay? I have to go on this trip. It’s really important. I’ll be home in time for Easter but my friends and I need to do this. It’s only for the first weeks of break and then I’ll be back. I promise. I love you too. I’ll text you when I get there, okay? Uh-huh. See you soon. Bye.”

He hangs up, pocketing his phone. It had gone about as well as he had expected; endless questions and protests because he’d _promised_ he’d be home for spring break and he had, but this was more important no matter how much he loved his parents. The move to college had been harder on them than him in all honesty, and he did feel bad that he was letting them down but they needed to make this trip. Whether it was for better or for worse, they needed to know what had happened in this town. Richie was beginning to think that it wasn’t an accident that they had all ended up in the same college, and it certainly wasn’t an accident that they had all forgotten their childhoods until they met each other. There was no way.

The drive back to Derry takes over a day, with Bev and Stan taking turns driving in their car, Bill and Ben in the other. None of them are particularly well rested when they pass the ‘Welcome to Derry!’ sign and Richie puts the headache that starts to pound when they pull into the parking lot of a crappy looking hotel down to that. He’s tired and a little bit stressed and he just needs to sleep in an actual bed.

Richie ends up in a room with Bill and Eddie, the other two couples (Mike and Stan had announced they were dating two days ago to the shock of absolutely no one) with a room each.

He sets his bag down on the middle bed and heads to the bathroom to splash his face and try and wake himself up a little. He wants to sleep, but the desire to explore Derry and try and find out what happened that summer is stronger. Eddie offers him two aspirin tablets which he happily takes and gulps down with a sip of water. He tries to ignore just how butterflies fill his stomach when he looks at the blond boy. Richie will admit, to himself, that he’s crushing hard and he needs to do something about it sooner or later.

Bev pounds on their door a couple of minutes later, and the three of them leave the room, joining the others in the hallway. It doesn’t take long for them to get into the car and into town, the seven of them crowding around the Aladdin that has certainly changed in the years that they had been away. It’s Mike’s idea to watch a movie and so they buy tickets for a shitty romcom and although they don’t really focus on the film itself, more the memories that come with sitting in the seat and throwing popcorn at each other, they have a good time.

 **iii** **  
** _see all the colours in disguise_

It’s on the third day of their trip that Eddie wakes up screaming and a breakthrough happens.

It’s just after 3AM, and Richie jolts awake to the sound of a blood curdling scream. He switches the lamp on, jumping out of bed before racing to the other side of the room where Eddie is sat upright in bed, his eyes wide and mouth open. He clamps a hand over Eddie’s mouth, muffling the scream just a little bit before he wakes too many people up, and wraps his other arm around the boy’s shoulders, begging him to calm down because whatever it was was just a dream.

Bill disappears and comes back a couple of minutes later with the other four in tow. They’re all half asleep; pyjamas, glazed eyes and bedheads, and by this time Eddie has calmed down, slumped in Richie’s arms with his eyes shut. Richie can feel him shaking and when his breath starts to wheeze, instructs Ben to grab the aspirator from Eddie’s backpack.

“Hey, Eds,” the nickname just feels right as he forces the aspirator into Eddie’s hand. “You need to take a couple of puffs, alright? It’ll help your breathing.” This feels eerily familiar, and Richie guesses that it’s maybe something he had to do a couple of times as a kid.

“It was a clown,” Eddie says between puffs. “A clown killed Georgie and a clown was the reason that we were in the sewer. We were fighting it.”

Richie recoils from Eddie as the sneering face of a clown appears in his mind and _Oh God, Eddie’s right._ That was why they were down in the sewer, that was the evil that had been plaguing them. But they had killed It, hadn’t they? He could have sworn they had.

“We’re going back to college,” Bev says. Her voice shakes and she’s gone pale. “I remember it now and there’s no way in hell we’re staying in a town with that _thing_ here. We’re going back right now.”

“Bev, no,” Mike moves to block the door. “We can't go back, not right now anyway. It’s too early. We killed It, guys. It’s dead. I don’t know why we’re remembering this now, or why it’s been so important to us for the past couple of months but we’re fine. We can go back in the morning, alright? For now we just need to calm down.”

They don’t stay the whole week in Derry. They go home that afternoon, all of them sleeping in after their abrupt wake up call. Eddie is quiet for the entire trip home, and Richie calls his mom once they’re over halfway back, asking if his parents can pick him up the next day. He lies, tells them the trip went well, he’s just homesick and his mom buys it hook, line and sinker. He’s unnerved, creeped out, and is beginning to wish that he never suggested that trip in the first place. Well, he supposes that he didn’t really suggest it; something else did. The clown, maybe.

“Are you okay, Eds?” Richie asks quietly, both of them sat in the back seats. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m just tired,” he shrugs, leaning his head against the window. “And I don’t want to go back home this early. You know how my mom is. She’s—”

“A psycho?” Richie laughs. “Yeah, I know. Hey, if you don’t want to go home you can always come back to mine for the holiday? My parents won’t care. In fact, they’ve been wanting to meet you guys since I told them we reunited. They say that they can barely remember you all, kinda like how were at first.”

“You’re sure they won’t mind?” Eddie raises his eyebrows, turning to face Richie. “Because I wouldn’t want to be a pain.”

“You won’t,” Richie pulls out his phone to quickly text his mom the change of plans. He’d call her later just to make sure that everything was fine, but he just couldn’t be bothered to be stuck on the phone to her for half an hour whilst she asked a ton of questions. “If anything my parents will be the pain. They’re awesome, don’t get me wrong, but mom can be just a little bit too much at times. They’ll love you, though, I know it.”

“You think so?” Eddie asks. “I mean sure, I guess.”

/

Maggie Tozier fusses over Eddie for the majority of spring break. She piles his plate high with food, plumps his pillows and makes the bed for him when he’s down at breakfast. She asks him how college is going and if he’s enjoying it, asks him about the friends he’s made and if he thinks that Richie’s humour is as bad as she thinks it is. Richie pretends to be offended when that’s brought up, but in reality his heart soars when Eddie nods his head with a slight smirk towards Richie. He’s always been the entertainer in friendship groups and it feels good to make people laugh. But especially Eddie. He always seems to be the silliest when Eddie is having a bad day and it wasn’t something that Richie noticed until Ben pointed it out one night when they were both having trouble sleeping.

Richie doesn’t think that it’s a bad thing.

Eddie eventually moves from the spare bedroom to Richie’s room, sleeping on an air mattress on the floor. Richie knows why before he tells him; because the clown is haunting his dreams. It’s the same for him, and the other Losers. But when Eddie’s there it’s not as bad. He awakes drenched in sweat and panting and Eddie’s there comforting him and vice versa. Oddly, some days, Richie feels thankful for the clown because it brought them together and maybe that was wrong of him; from what he remembers It was pure evil, unleashing hell upon the kids of Derry who stumbled upon it, but he can’t help it. It’s wrong, so wrong of him, and he would never say it out loud, but he thinks it anyway.

“Eddie do you think we should go back to Derry?” He asks one morning when they’re both sat at the dining room table eating bowls of cereal. It’s something he’s been dwelling on for a while now, but an idea he’s been too afraid to pitch.

“Hell no.” Droplets of milk spray from Eddie’s mouth as he almost chokes on his cereal at the mere suggestion. “You’re fucking kidding, Richie, right? What happened last time we were there? The fucking clown. That’s what happened. And the more I think about it the more I think that no, maybe we didn’t kill it, and that’s the whole reason that this is happening. It’s taunting us, Richie and if we go back there we’re dead.”

“But think about it, Eddie—”

“No, I won’t think about it. I don’t want to think about that damn clown or that cursed town any more than I have to,” Eddie shakes his head, his eyebrows furrowed and his eyes glazed with anger. “I’ve only just found you guys and I’m not losing you again.”

“Fine. Forget that I said anything, okay?” Richie looks back down at his cereal and the two eat in silence. He had known that that was a stupid thing to bring up but he’d done it anyway and now Eddie was mad at him and it was his fault.

Richie both loves and hates what they have discovered; this bond that connects him to six others. It’s both the best and worst thing in his life. On one hand he couldn’t get the image of the clown,  the smell of the sewer, or Georgie Denbrough’s bloodstained slicker out of his head, but on the other hand he’d met Eddie Kaspbrak. Eddie Kaspbrak with his wavy blond hair and his aspirator and the eyes that made Richie giddy every time they met his. It had brought Ben and Beverly together and Stan and Mike and Richie could only hope that he and Eddie were next.

/

Eddie asks Richie out on a rainy afternoon. He’s just finished lectures and has just flopped onto his bed when there’s a gentle knock on his door. Richie groans and opens it to Eddie’s flushed face. He opens his mouth to ask Eddie what he wants, but the smaller boy holds up a hand and Richie closes his mouth, waiting for Eddie to speak. He feels something close to fear in the pit of his stomach as Eddie takes a deep breath, but the words that come out of Eddie’s mouth chase that away and a feeling of elation replaces it.

“Richie, I’ve been meaning to ask you this for a while now,” the blond haired boy says. “Will you go out with me?”

“Holy fuck,” Richie chokes out, his eyes welling with tears of happiness. He imagines that this was what Ben felt like when Bev made a move, or Stan with Mike, and he quickly nods his head. “A million times yes, Eddie Kaspbrak, of course I will.”

He ignores the cheers from out in the corridor, too happy to be annoyed that the other Losers had tagged along with Eddie to something that was supposed to be personal. He supposes that Eddie needed the encouragement and support of the others, and them being there isn’t necessarily a bad thing, especially when they join in in the hug. With all of them around him Richie feels happier than he has in a while, safer than he has in a while, and he realises that he loves each and every one of them to death. The love for them has always been there, ever since they first re-discovered each other but for whatever reason it’s intensified since their trip to Derry.

 _Not a bad thing,_ Richie thinks, _it’s not a bad thing_. And soon his tears are falling onto the fabric of Eddie’s t-shirt as he buries his face in Eddie’s shoulder and weeps. The group seems to tighten around him and Richie wishes that it never has to end.

He leans into Bill’s side once they pull apart, wiping the tears from his face. He excuses himself for a minute and heads into the bathroom where he splashes water on his face and stares at his blotchy cheeks and bloodshot eyes in the mirror. He looks awful but he can’t stop smiling at himself and wondering just what he’d done to become so lucky — he was officially Eddie Kaspbrak’s boyfriend, and he has an amazing group of friends and holy _fuck_ going to college has been the best decision of his life.

 **iv**  
_somewhere deep in the dark_

Eventually the nightmares taper off and the clown is pushed to the back of their minds, no longer occupying their thoughts. They finish their first year of college and spend a lot of the summer travelling back and forth between each other’s houses. They meet everyone’s parents again and learn to fake a smile when the inevitable ‘you’ve changed so much!’ comes.  

They return to college rested and refreshed and closer than ever. Richie dorms with Eddie, Mike with Stan, Ben with Bill, and Bev with Audra. It makes the most sense at the time, although within a couple of months they would realise their mistakes. Classes start, homework is completed and the Losers host study groups in the library often (although not much studying actually happens) they eat meals together and become more like the Losers club of their childhood.

“Beep beep, Richie.” Bev says one afternoon when he was being particularly annoying. The conversation stops then and there’s a sort of bewildered silence afterwards. Of course Richie remembers the phrase being directed towards him often as a kid, but nobody has said it to him yet.

The silence is broken with a deadpan “ _Yeah_ , beep beep _Richie_ ,” from Stan and suddenly the entire table breaks out into laughter and Richie switches to one of his Voices, grinning from ear to ear as he tells them all to go fuck themselves. (They promptly quieten down after the librarian stalks over and tells them to be quiet, but the snickers, every time Richie uses a Voice or he’s beeped, don’t stop).

It’s at breakfast the next morning that old, familiar nicknames start to slide off his tongue: Haystack, Stan the Man, Eddie Spaghetti. It’s the first time in years that he’s called Trashmouth and Eddie looks triumphant at the look of surprise that covers Richie’s face. In rebuttal, Richie makes a ‘your mom’ joke and the Losers laugh at the whole conversation until they’re crying and amongst them, acting like they did as kids, Richie feels at home. He used to love being beeped and he still does, he used to love making the Losers laugh and he still does and he thinks that maybe their parents were wrong. Maybe they haven’t changed since they were kids at all, maybe they’ve just been clueless to who they truly are for so long, their personalities growing around the gap that their stolen memories had left behind. Because he feels more like Richie Tozier than he has in a long time.

/

It’s one night in particular that marks the end of the Loser’s Club for Richie.

They’re all crammed into Bills dorm room, taking up space on the floor and the beds, and they’re all slightly tipsy besides Eddie who claims that he needs to be sober to stop them from doing stupid and/or dangerous things. For some reason, the conversation turns to It and Derry and before they know it they’re being sucked into a deep discussion about what had transpired that summer; it was something that they all knew about but hadn’t actually mentioned. It was something important and something traumatic and as much as Richie wants to stop talking about, he can’t.

It has become clear to them that It is not dead. Stan brings up the vow that they had taken and the room goes into a stunned silence. It’s now that everything clicks into place; they were brought together to gear up for another war. It’s so obvious and Richie is surprised that they hadn’t managed to piece it together before this but that doesn’t matter because they’ve figured it out now and it’s not too late.

“Guys this doesn’t make sense!” Mike cries as they all talk over one another and they all turn to him, silent and willing to listen. “There can’t be another war, not soon anyway. It’s every twenty seven years, right?” Everyone nods, and Richie catches on to what he’s talking about. “Exactly! It’s barely been seven. There’s no way It can be coming back soon. We _injured_ It, if anything it should take longer for It to come back.”

“He’s right,” Bev says. “When we went back there It was just trying to scare us off. It’s still scared of us and even if it’s not active right now it’s watching. Because this time we know what to do to destroy It.”

“This is all stupid,” Stan throws his hands in the air, leaning his head against the wall. “You’re all being stupid about this. There is no way that we’re supposed to defeat this. ‘It’ is a fucking supernatural being. Do you really think that we’ll be able to defeat It again? We got lucky the first time and if you guys really do think that we can do it again then maybe you deserve to—”

“Woah, Stan,” Bill cuts him off, eyes narrowed at the curly haired boy who stares defiantly back. “You’re the one being stupid about this. Of course we can defeat it again and even if we can’t don’t you think we should still try? So that there doesn’t end up being any more Georgies or any more Bettys?”

“No, I don’t think we should try again,” Stan’s voice is sharp and Richie shares an uneasy glance with Mike; they need to stop this before it spirals out of control. “I don’t think that it’s worth going to Hell and back if we’re only going to have to do it again in another 27 years.”

“We won’t have to go back this time,” Bev protests. “Because this time we’ll kill It! We didn’t last time because we didn’t really know what we were doing but this time we do! Stan I swear—”

There’s a loud bang as the door slams. Richie stares at the empty spot on Bill’s bed where Stan had been sat, and then looks around at the others. They’re all shocked, he can see it in their eyes and written on their faces. But they feel weaker, too, and Richie would later understand why during their final encounter with It.

/

A week after Stan leaves the Loser’s Club, Eddie does too. He corners Richie in their dorm room, grilling him over what’s going to happen when they next fight It and if Richie’s plan to go back to Derry was a ploy to get them all killed. Richie is confused as hell, a stammering mess as he tries to answer his boyfriend’s onslaught of questions. _Of course he didn’t want to get them killed, no he doesn’t know what’s going to happen in the future and yes, he really does love him. He swears to_ God _he doe_ s. But that’s not enough for Eddie. They break up that night and Eddie applies for a room transfer the next day.

Bev and Ben break up a few days after that, followed by Stan and Mike (Richie was honestly surprised that they had lasted that long. Every time he saw them they were arguing). And in the back of Richie’s mind he knew that it was somehow It’s doing but that didn’t make it hurt any less. He spent so many sleepless nights, reminiscing on the now fading memories of his childhood. He felt so powerless when he became unable to recall things again, aware that their bond had been the only thing protecting them from It. Now that it was broken they were once again falling victim to It, helpless as their love turned to loathing and their memories were sucked away for the second time.

By that summer he’s once again forgotten most of his childhood and the past year is hazy at best. He remains friendless for the next two years, graduating with only his parents to cheer him on. He catches glimpses of the others in the hallways, and there’s a spark of recognition but nothing more. He has no feelings towards them, no opinions. He knows that he knows them from somewhere but he’ll be damned if he knows where from. Sometimes they smile at each other, sometimes they don’t. Sometimes when he’s lying in bed at night he’s filled with a sense of longing and their faces come to mind but he doesn’t know why.

At least he doesn’t until many years later when he receives a phone call from Mike Hanlon that forces him back to Derry.

And he definitely knows why when he's cradling Eddie's body in his arms.

**Author's Note:**

> part titles:  
> i & ii Spanish Sahara - Foals  
> iii & iv Yellow Light - Of Monsters and Men 
> 
> a lot of self doubt and self loathing went into the making of this fic but i hope you enjoyed  
> [tumblr](http://pun-rise.tumblr.com)  
> 


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